Ancient Shrine That May Hold Buddha's Skull Bone Found in Crypt

A skull bone of the Buddha was found inside this gold casket, which was stored in a silver casket within the stupa model, found in a crypt beneath a Buddhist temple.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Chinese Cultural Relics

Archaeologists have discovered what may be a skull bone from the revered Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. The bone was hidden inside a model of a stupa, or a Buddhist shrine used for meditation.

The research team found the 1,000-year-old model within a stone chest in a crypt beneath a Buddhist temple in Nanjing, China. Inside the stupa model archaeologists found the remains of Buddhist saints, including a parietal (skull) bone that inscriptions say belonged to the Buddha himself.

The model is made of sandalwood, silver and gold, and is covered with gemstones made of crystal, glass, agate and lapis lazuli, a team of archaeologists reported in an article published in the journal Chinese Cultural Relics.

nscriptions engraved on the stone chest that the model was found in say that it was constructed during the reign of Emperor Zhenzong (A.D. 997-1022), during the Song Dynasty. Also inscribed on the stupa are the names of people who donated money and material to build the model, as well as some of the people who constructed the model. [See Photos of the Model Stupa Holding Buddha Remains]

While the inscriptions say that the skull bone belongs to the Buddha, it is unknown whether it really does come from him. In the journal article, archaeologists didn't speculate on how likely it is. The bone is being treated with great respect and has been interred in the modern-day Qixia Temple by Buddhist monks. 

Stone chest inscription

This model of a stupa, which is used for meditation, was discovered beneath Grand Bao'en Temple in Nanjing, China. The 1,000-year-old stupa is made of sandalwood, silver and gold.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Chinese Cultural Relics.

Discovered beneath the Grand Bao'en Temple, the stupa model — which is 117 centimeters tall and 45 cm wide (nearly 4 feet by 1.5 feet) — was stored within an iron box, which, in turn, was stored within a stone chest.

An inscription found within the stone chest was written by a man named Deming about 1,000 years ago, saying that he is "the Master of Perfect Enlightenment, Abbot of Chengtian Monastery [and] the Holder of the Purple Robe" (as translated by researchers in the journal article). He tells the story of how the Buddha's parietal bone came to China. [Photos: 1,700-Year-Old Buddhist Sculptures Found in Shrine.

Deming wrote that after the Buddha "entered parinirvana" (a final death that breaks the cycle of death and rebirth), that his body "was cremated near the Hirannavati River" in India. The man who ruled India at the time, King Ashoka (reign 268-232 B.C.), decided to preserve the Buddha's remains, which he "divided into a total of 84,000 shares," Deming wrote. "Our land of China received 19 of them," including the parietal bone, he added.

The parietal bone was kept in a temple that was destroyed about 1,400 years ago during a series of wars, Deming wrote. "The foundation ruins … were scattered in the weeds," Deming wrote. "In this time of turbulence, did no one care for Buddhist affairs?"

Emperor Zhenzong agreed to rebuild the temple and have the Buddha's parietal bone, and the remains of other Buddhist saints, buried in an underground crypt at the temple, according to Deming's inscriptions. They were interred on July 21, 1011 A.D., in "a most solemn and elaborate burial ceremony," Deming wrote.

Deming praised the emperor for rebuilding the temple and burying the Buddha's remains, wishing the emperor a long life, loyal ministers and numerous grandchildren: "May the Heir Apparent and the imperial princes be blessed and prosperous with 10,000 offspring; may Civil and Military Ministers of the Court be loyal and patriotic; may the three armed forces and citizens enjoy a happy and peaceful time …"

Buddha burial

The parietal bone of the Buddha was buried within an inner casket made of gold, which, in turn, was placed in an outer casket made of silver, according to the archaeologists. The silver casket was then placed inside the model of the stupa.

The gold and silver caskets were decorated with images of lotus patterns, phoenix birds and gods guarding the caskets with swords. The outer casket also has images of spirits called apsaras that are shown playing musical instruments.

The parietal bone of the Buddha was placed within the gold inner casket along with three crystal bottles and a silver box, all of which contain the remains of other Buddhist saints.

Engraved on the outside of the model are several images of the Buddha, along with scenes depicting stories from the Buddha's life, from his birth to the point when he reached "parinirvana," a death from which the Buddha wasn't reborn — something that freed him from a cycle of death and rebirth, according to the Buddhist religion.

Impact in China

A large team of archaeologists from the Nanjing Municipal Institute of Archaeology excavated the crypt between 2007 and 2010; they were supported by experts from other institutions in China.

Although the excavations received little coverage by Western media outlets, they were covered extensively in China. Chinese media outlets say that, after the parietal bone of the Buddha was removed, Buddhist monks interred the bone and the remains of the other Buddhist saints in Qixia Temple, a Buddhist temple used today. The Buddha's parietal bone and other artifacts from the excavation were later displayed in Hong Kong and Macao.   

When the bone traveled to Macao in 2012, the media outlet Xinhua reported that "tens of thousands of Buddhist devotees will pay homage to the sacred relic," and that "more than 140,000 tickets have been sold out by now, according to the [event organizer]."

An article detailing the discoveries was published in Chinese in 2015 in the journal Wenwu, before being translated and published in Chinese Cultural Relics.

The Chemistry Behind a Sparkler's 4th of July Magic

This weekend, people in the U.S. will be celebrating Independence Day, and across the country preparations are underway to mark the occasion with fireworks and other pyrotechnics. Sparklers offer a smaller but prolonged pyrotechnic experience, and they have become mainstays of Fourth of July celebrations, but how do they work?

A new video from the American Chemical Society's (ACS) YouTube series "Reactions" examines thechemistry of sparklers in extreme slow-motion.

"Pyrotechnics, fireworks, sparklers, all these types of things, it's like a culinary art," Chris Mocella, co-author of the book "Chemistry of Pyrotechnics: Basic Principles and Theory" (CRC Press, 2010) and technical adviser for the new ACS video, told Live Science. "It's all chemistry at the basic level, but there are fun little tricks and things you can do with the different material you have." [50 Fabulous 4th of July Facts: Fiery Fireworks.

In pyrotechnics, the special ingredients are fuel and an oxidizer. In the case of a sparkler, the fuel is mostly a powdered metal and the oxidizer is most often potassium nitrate. When the powdered metal is oxidized, it creates a lot of extra energy.

The light that’s emitted, the heat, and the sounds that sparklers make are all leftover energy converted into something that we can perceive — all part of the brilliant cascade of glittering sparks.

When a sparkler is lit, the same inherent reaction occurs as in fireworks: combustion.

"When you burn firewood, that’s combustion, but it takes a long time for all of that to burn down," Mocella said. "When you strike a match, that’s also combustion, but the match head gives out much faster. And then a firework is an extremely fast type of combustion."

In the case of fireworks, all of the pyrotechnic material in the middle (usually a black powder, like gun powder) is confined very tightly. When it is ignited, the initial combustion releases heat and gas that builds up pressure to the point of an explosion.

When a sparkler is lit, that same combustion happens but it doesn't explode in your hand. This is because the reaction does not happen fast enough, Mocella said. He explained that the combustion happens in a line. As you light the top of a sparkler the reaction begins: the oxygen is liberated, it oxidizes the metal, which releases more heat and that ignites the next little bit of the pyrotechnic going all the way down the line, he said.

While the powdered metal in a sparkler acts as the fuel, there are larger-size pieces of metal, about the size of fine grains of sand, that create the sparkles themselves.

"When those get ignited, that's the sparkle that you see," Mocella said. "Those [tiny pieces of metal] are ejected into the air, and they burn in the air almost like a little tiny shooting star."

Without these larger pieces of metal, the sparkler would burn down just like a match, albeit a very hot match.

Lab-Grown 'Living' Bones Could Yield Customized Implants

For the first time, pieces of living bone have been grown from the cells of patients — in this case, miniature pigs — and sculpted to replace missing anatomical structures.

The custom-engineered bone was used to successfully repair a pig's lower jaw, one of the strongest and most complex jaws in the face, paving the way for bone repairs that could be carried out elsewhere in the body, the researchers said.

Bones often come in complex shapes, making it difficult to find matching natural replacements for them in patients suffering from injuries, diseases or birth defects. Although surgeons can replace missing bone with titanium, such artificial implants lack bone marrow, which plays many important roles in the body, such as generating red blood cells and immune cells. [The 9 Most Interesting Transplants.

Patients could receive donated bones, but doing so raises other issues, such as increasing the risk of tissue rejection. Alternatively, doctors can harvest bone from another part of a patient's body and carve it to fit where it needs to go, but damage at the harvest site is typically major and can lead to extreme pain.

Instead, scientists now hope to grow living bone in the lab. The researchers focused on the ramus-condyle unit, the part of the lower jaw that meets the skull near the ear, and the main weight-bearing bone in the face. They experimented on Yucatán minipigs, because the animals' jaw anatomy and mechanics closely mimic those of humans.

The researchers first took chunks of cow thighbones and stripped them of all their cells using detergents and enzymes. They next carved these "decellularized" chunks into perfect anatomical fits for the ramus-condyle units that were surgically removed from the minipigs.

The scientists then seeded these bone scaffolds with stem cells derived from the fat of the minipigs that were to receive these grafts. The implants were then placed in "bioreactors" that supplied the stem cells with oxygen and nutrients.

After three weeks, the stem cells developed into immature living bone. "The bone is formed by the recipient's own cells," study senior author Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a bioengineer at Columbia University, told Live Science.

But, if these living bone grafts ever make it to the clinic, they may be grown far away from where they are eventually implanted. To see how their grafts might fare under such conditions, Vunjak-Novakovic and her colleagues manufactured and implanted the grafts, "at two locations that were more than 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) apart, New York City and Baton Rouge (Louisiana)," Vunjak-Novakovic said. Fat cells were shipped from the pigs to the researchers, and the grafts were shipped in their bioreactors to the pigs.

Six months after implantation, these grafts successfully incorporated themselves into their host bodies and regenerated bone without any complications, while also helping the minipigs use their jaws again, the researchers said. Moreover, "unexpectedly, the lab-grown bone, when implanted, was gradually replaced by new bone formed by the body," Vunjak-Novakovic said. "This feature is what makes this implant your own bone that will become an integral part of the native bone." [7 Cool Uses of 3D Printing in Medicine]

Vunjak-Novakovic noted that the quality of the regenerated tissue exceeded that of previous approaches. Moreover, the scaffold they developed enabled bone formation without the use of expensive chemicals known as growth factors that other approaches typically rely on.

"This is a very exciting step forward in improving regenerative medicine options for patients with craniofacial defects, and we hope to start clinical trials within a few years," Vunjak-Novakovic said in a statement.

The clinical trials with living bone grafts would be conducted through Vunjak-Novakovic's company epiBone.

"Having a chance to work on innovative research that may be part of our future is intriguing, energizing, and really inspiring," said study lead author Sarindr Bhumiratana, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University, who is also the chief scientific officer at epiBone.

The scientists are now also experimenting with including a cartilage layer on their living bone grafts to more closely mimic natural bone. "Cartilage is a thin and resilient tissue that lines the ends of most of our bones, to enable frictionless motion," Vunjak-Novakovic said.

The scientists detailed their findings online June 15 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

New Male Birth Control Hopes To Prevent Sperm Motility By Targeting Enzyme In Testes

The pill and the condom, whether used separately or in combination, have been the most popular method of contraception for men and women for decades. The efficacy of the pill and condoms range from 92 to 98 percent, respectively, but with side effects. Synthetic hormones in the pill can have very real side effects on the body, while condoms can be prone to slippage and breakage.

Now, a study published in the journal Protein Expression and Purification suggests science is one step closer to developing a non-hormonal male birth control pill — without the side effects.

“The challenge in developing a new contraceptive is that a male ‘pill’ will be taken by perfectly healthy men,” said John Herr, author of the study and a cell biologist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, in the statement.

He added: “Because of this fact, a male contraceptive drug should be very precise in its mechanism of action, without any off-target side-effects on molecules with similar properties located in other organs.”

To develop a non-hormonal male contraceptive drug, Herr and his colleagues managed to isolate and manufacture an enzyme known as spermatids (TSSK2) which are exclusively found in the testes, and involved only during the very last stage of sperm production. The researchers sought to target this particular enzyme to inhibit its function as sperm is made, and essentially, prevent egg fertilization. This will improve the likelihood that targeting the enzyme will have effects nowhere else in the body.

Similarly this month, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, have developed an injectable non-hormonal and reversible male birth control gel, Vasalgel, that will prevent the sperm from getting through the vas deferens — the duct that conveys sperm from the testes to the urethra. Once the birth control is injected, the material forms a hydrogel, remaining in a gel-like, soft state that can flex to the walls of the vas deferentia. Although water soluble molecules can pass through, it blocks larger structures, like sperm. Researchers suspect it could lower the occurrence of hydrostatic pressure, or the back pressure in sperm productionareas. Vasalgel is expected to be on the market as soon as 2018.

Herr admits much work remains to be done with his drug, but he remains hopeful based on the recent breakthrough.

"We're on the path toward the male contraceptive drug, and this is a noteworthy benchmark along that path,” he said.

Previously, Herr developed SpermCheck, a home fertility test for men that is sold in pharmacies and stores around the world. A positive test result means a man’s sperm count is at least 20 million per milliliter. Typically, about 90 percent of fertile men have sperm counts above 20 million per milliliter, which are counts needed for conception. A negative test indicates sperm count is less than 20 million per milliliter. On average, 10 percent of fertile men have sperm counts below this mark, meaning a negative test is not 100 percent definitive.

New male contraceptives and home fertility tests are all part of the evolving contraceptive revolution — with the pill no longer being only synonymous with women, but with men too.

Your Brain On Science And Religion: Non-Believers Report Same Personality Traits As Psychopaths

The neurons in your brain work in coordinated networks, with some mental webs enabling critical thinking, others encouraging empathy. Given a science problem, then, the brain’s analytical network will activate as it simultaneously suppresses the social network. A new study, presented as a series of linked experiments, explores this fundamental conflict between thinking and feeling. The more empathetic you are, the more likely you will be religious, the researchers discovered, while on the flip side, if you tend to be analytic, you are more likely to find the concept of a higher power difficult to swallow.

“Analytic thinking and moral concern represent two cognitive modes which our neural architecture causes to be in competition with each other,” conclude the Case Western Reserve University and Babson College researchers.

However, their results also suggest a darker side to our thinking brains. In terms of a general personality profile, the non-religious are aligned with the psychopaths, reporting higher levels of self-centered impulsivity and coldheartedness than their faithful peers.

Higher Power

Previously, Dr. Tony Jack, an associate professor of philosophy, used MRI scans to reveal two opposing domains within the human brain. Looking back at his past research, Jack considered the many instances in life where an ambiguous situation does not automatically inspire you to respond one way or another — either analytically or empathically. In these ambiguous circumstances, he theorized, your natural tendencies decide which network you activate. Hypothesizing religion provides just such an ambiguous context, Jack enlisted the help of his colleagues in order to explore.

The research team designed eight linked experiments, each involving between 159 and 527 adults, to investigate potential connections between belief, analytic thinking, and moral concern. In the first experiment, participants completed surveys measuring mechanical reasoning, empathic concern, critical reasoning, and also beliefs. Sample items on the empathy test included: “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.” Analyzing the data, the researchers found belief positively correlated with empathy yet negatively correlated with critical thinking and mechanical reasoning. In other words,believers tended to score high on empathy and low on critical thinking and mechanical reasoning. And, those with high empathy marks earned low points in critical thinking.

While the experiments suggest the faithful are not as smart as the atheists, they also revealed the more religious the person, the more moral concern they showed (though the researchers did not establish cause and effect).

“In every study we found that a central aspect of moral concern, empathic concern, significantly predicted religious and spiritual belief,” wrote the authors.

Mentalizing

Four of the studies highlighted mentalizing: interpreting behavior in terms of intentional mental states such as needs, desires, or purposes. To gauge mentalizing, the studies included self-report measures, performance-based measures, and an indirect self-report measure of loneliness. Analyzing the results, the researcher found belief and mentalizing do not coexist.

Alternatively, the researchers say “non-believers have personality profiles more closely associated with the psychopathic phenotype (i.e., deficits in moral concern) than with the autism phenotype (i.e., deficits in mentalizing).” To support this finding, they refer to a 2014 published survey that found non-believers reported “higher levels of psychopathic traits,namely self-centered impulsivity and coldheartedness, than do religious believers.”   

In the end, Jack and his colleagues suggest no one has to live in an either/or world. We can exercise both empathy and critical thinking simply by recognizing this is how the brain operates. Although our neural networks may sacrifice one for the other, we do not have to do the same.

Controversial price-gouging pharma CEO Martin Shkreli has been arrested on charges of fraud Prosecutors claim he "essentially ran his companies like a Ponzi scheme".

Martin Shkreli was arrested by the FBI on charges of securities-fraud on Thursday morning. Bloomberg News was the first to report the news of Shkreli's arrest.

Shkreli, the 32-year-old CEO of KaloBios, gained notoriety in September after it was revealed that as CEO of another company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, he had raised the price of a drug used to treat parasitic infections from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

The charges are unrelated to those two companies.

Before Turing Pharmaceuticals, Shkreli founded and served as CEO of biotech company Retrophin from 2011 until September 2014. Retrophin went public in December 2012.

Prior to that, he was the founder of MSMB Capital Management, a now-defunct healthcare-focused hedge fund that launched in September 2009. He previously ran a hedge fund Elea Capital Management from 2006 until 2007.

Lawyer Evan Greebel, a 42-year-old partner at Kaye Scholer and outside counsel to Retrophin, was arrested along with Shkreli. A spokeswoman for Kaye Scholer told Business Insider that Greebel joined the firm in July 2015 and "the transactions predate his arrival to the firm".

"A Ponzi Scheme"

Shkreli has been charged with two counts of securities fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and three counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed a civil suit against Shkreli.

In the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York's complaint, prosecutors allege that Shkreli and Greebel orchestrated three interrelated fraudulent schemes between 2009 and 2014.

Specifically, Shkreli is accused of defrauding investors in his hedge funds by making "material misrepresentations" about the performance and assets under management. He's also accused of preventing investors from redeeming their capital.

In a press conference on Thursday afternoon, US Attorney Robert Capers said Shkreli "essentially ran his companies like a Ponzi scheme".

Capers said Shkreli used money in subsequent companies to pay off debts he incurred from a series of bad trades and to conceal lies he told investors in his hedge funds.

Capers added that Shkreli used Retrophin as his "personal piggy bank".

In the complaint, both Shkreli and Greebel are accused of "misappropriating" Retrophin's assets to pay back personal and professional debts stemming from the bad trades Shkreli made while running MSMB Capital.

The government will also "seek forfeiture" of "any property, real or personal, which constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to any to such offenses".

Shares of Retrophin were last trading down 1.6 percent. Trading in shares of KaloBios stock has been halted.

Shkreli has previously denied any wrongdoing at Retrophin, in a message on a pharma-news bulletin board.

The Retrophin lawsuits

In August, Shkreli was sued by Retrophin. The company's board ousted him as CEO in September 2014.

In the suit, Retrophin, which is seeking $65 million in damages, accused Shkreli of engaging in multiple "self-dealing schemes" while he was at the company. Many of these alleged schemes would have benefited MSMB Capital Management.

The schemes detailed in the suit included having Retrophin "enter into sham consulting agreements" through which the company paid investors who were "defrauded" by Shkreli's hedge fund. Shkreli was also accused in the suit of using funds "misappropriated" from Retrophin to pay for a settlement that stemmed from a bad trade shorting Orexigen Therapeutics made by his hedge fund, among other things.

Shkreli told Business Insider in September that this suit was "blackmail" and a defensive move by the company.

Shkreli has also been named in four other lawsuits filed by Retrophin investors in New York's Southern District between September 2014 and December 2014.

These suits accused him of having profited through insider trading and making "materially false and misleading statements" that "artificially inflated" the company's stock price. One suit was dismissed. In another, attorneys for both sides indicated they would seek resolution in "private mediation". Two of the lawsuits are ongoing.

Shkreli told Business Insider in September that all the suits from Retrophin investors were "copy and paste stock went down lawsuit[s]" filed by opportunistic lawyers.

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

Watch: Remarkable footage of emperor penguins 'mourning' dead chick I'm not crying, you're crying!

I was not expecting today to be the day that a couple of giant emperor penguins would make me cry, but here we are. This incredibly intimate footage was captured as part of the 2013 BBC documentary, Penguins: Spy in the Huddle, shot over the course of a year by 50 spycams shaped like stones, eggs, and other penguins. It's not clear how the chick died, but that tiny frigid corpse is enough to kick anyone right in the feels, and then you have deal with the reaction of its mother.

Hunched over the perfectly preserved chick, the mother pokes gently at it with her beak to check for signs of life. Instinctively, she nudges it towards her pouch because it's all she has to offer, but it's far too late.

In perhaps the most heartbreaking moment of the footage, a female companion trundles over and rests her head on the shoulder of the crumpled mother. It's not right to anthropomorphise and project emotions onto these animals that we don't know are even there, but it's pretty surreal how the scene could just as easily be two humans mourning a child.

The mother nudges the chick closer between her feet before throwing her head back and bleating into the air and her companion does the same. "The mother invested everything into her chick, to lose it is a tragedy," says narrator and British actor, David Tennant. "She will have to wait another year."

Emperor penguin females lay just one egg each during the Antarctic winter months, and once that's done, they will leave the inland colony and make the50- to 200-km walk back to the ocean to feed and recuperate. The males remain to incubate their eggs. Before then, the couple must take great pains to ensure that when they transfer their egg from brood pouch to brood pouch, they don't drop it on the ice and kill the embryo - many Emperor penguins lose their chicks by messing up the handover.

For almost four months, the males will remain huddled together, their eggs kept warm by the flesh of the brooch pouch and propped up on their feet - they're the only species in the world known to care for their young like this. For up to 115 consecutive days, the males will stand, still as statues, eating nothing but a little snow as they wait for their mates to return from the sea. They'll often lose 40 percent of their body weight in the process.  

The females will return just after their chicks have hatched, and then they have to figure out where their family is in the throng by calling out to their mates. Then it's up to each couple to ensure that what happened to the poor little chick above doesn't happen to their offspring.

Now, if all this talk of dead penguin babies has got you down, don't worry. John Downer Productions, which is responsible for the footage above, has put together a compilation of spycam penguin bloopers to take away the sads:

Scientists have built a functional 'hybrid' logic gate for use in quantum computers Here's how to solve the problem of quantum memory.

As conventional computers draw ever closer to their theoretical limit, the race is on to build a machine that can truly harness the unprecedented processing power of quantum computing. And now two research teams have independently demonstrated how entangling atoms from different elements can address the problem of quantum memory errors while functioning within a logic gate framework, and also pass the all-important test of true entanglement. 

"Hybrid quantum computers allow the unique advantages of different types of quantum systems to be exploited together in a single platform," said lead author Ting Rei Tan. "Each ion species is unique, and certain ones are better suited for certain tasks such as memory storage, while others are more suited to provide interconnects for data transfer between remote systems."

In the computers we use today, data is processed and stored as binary bits, with each individual bit taking on a state of either 0 or 1. Because these states are set, there’s a finite amount of information that can ultimately be processed, and we’re quickly approaching the point where this isn’t going to be enough.

Quantum computers, on the other hand, store data as qubits, which can be in the state of 0 or 1, or can take on another state called superposition, which allows them to be both 0 and 1 at the same time. If we can figure out how to build a machine that integrates this phenomenon with data-processing capabilities, we’re looking at computers that are hundreds of millions of times faster than the super computers of today.

The qubits used in this set-up are actually atomic ions (atoms with an electron removed), and their states are determined by their spin - spin up is 1, spin down is 0. Each atomic ion is paired off, and if the control ion takes on the state of superposition, it will become entangled with its partner, so anything you do to one ion will affect the other.

This can pose problems, particularly when it comes to memory, and there’s no point storing and processing information if you can’t reliably retain it. If you’ve got an entire system built on pairs of the same atomic ions, you leave yourself open to constant errors, because if one ion is affected by a malfunction, this will also affect its partner. At the same time, using the same atomic ions in a pair makes it very difficult for them to perform separate functions.

So researchers from the University of Oxford in the UK, and a second team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Washington, have figured out which combinations of different elements can function together as pairs in a quantum set-up.

"Each trapped ion is used to represent one ‘quantum bit’ of information. The quantum states of the ions are controlled with laser pulses of precise frequency and duration," says one of the researchers, David Lucas from the University of Oxford. "Two different species of ion are needed in the computer: one to store information, a 'memory qubit', and one to link different parts of the computer together via photons, an 'interface qubit'."

While the Oxford team achieved this using two different isotopes of calcium (the abundant isotope calcium-40 and the rare isotope calcium-43), the second team went even further by pairing up entirely different atoms - magnesium and beryllium. Each one is sensitive to a different wavelength of light, which means zapping one with a laser pulse to control its function won’t affect its partner.

The teams them went on to demonstrate for the first time that these pairs could have their 0,1, or superposition states controlled by two different types of logic gates, called the CNOT gate and the SWAP gate. Logic gates are crucial components of any digital circuit, because they’re able to record two input values and provide a new output based on programmed logic. 

"A CNOT gate flips the second (target) qubit if the first (control) qubit is a 1; if it is a 0, the target bit is unchanged," the NIST press release explains. "If the control qubit is in a superposition, the ions become entangled. A SWAP gate interchanges the qubit states, including superpositions."

The Oxford team demonstrated ion pairing in this set-up for about 60 seconds, while the NIST/Washington team managed to keep theirs entangled for 1.5 seconds. That doesn’t sound like much, but that's relatively stable when it comes to qubits.

"Both teams confirm that their two atoms are entangled with a very high probability; 0.998 for one, 0.979 for the other (of a maximum of one)," John Timmer reports for Ars Technica. "The NIST team even showed that it could track the beryllium atom as it changed state by observing the state of the magnesium atom."

Further, both teams were able to successfully perform a Bell test by using the logic gate to entangle the pairs of different-species ions, and then manipulating and measuring them independently.

"[W]e show that quantum logic gates between different isotopic species are possible, can be driven by a relatively simple laser system, and can work with precision beyond the so-called 'fault-tolerant threshold' precision of approximately 99 percent - the precision necessary to implement the techniques of quantum error correction, without which a quantum computer of useful size cannot be built," said Lucas in an Oxford press release.

Of course, we don't have proper quantum computers to actually test these components in the context of a functioning system - that will have to be the next step, and international teams of scientists and engineers are racing to get us there. We can't wait to see it when they do.

The papers have been published in Nature here and here.

People in China are buying cans of fresh air from Canada That'll be $22.95 for 10 litres, thanks.

What started out as a joke straight out of Spaceballs has suddenly taken off as a viable business - a Canadian start-up selling bottled air from the Rocky Mountains has seen a surge of sales from China, with its first shipment selling out in four days.

The concept of Vitality Air was dreamt up back in 2013, when a couple of Canadians auctioned off a bag of air for less than 99 cents on eBay. Their second bag sold for US$160. "That’s when we realised there is a market for this," co-founder Moses Lam told The Telegraph. 

"A gag gift, that's how it started off, but you know what? There's actually a lot of demand for this in … highly polluted countries," Lam told the Canadan National Post.

While most of us are pretty satisfied with the air we get for free, increasing anxiety over the health effects of China’s polluted air - which in Beijing is worse than it’s ever been - has driven some to fork out as much as US$22.95 for a 10-litre bottle of 97 percent 'Pure Premium Oxygen', which "provides upwards of 200 inhalations!". The same amount of cash will get you 7.7 litres of 'Lake Louise Air', which gives you 150 breaths.

Customers are given two options: pure oxygen, which contains 97 percent oxygen and a small amount of other gases, or "fresh clean air", which contains 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and a small amount of other gases. 

If you opt for the fresh clean air, you can choose to have it sourced from the general Banff National Park area in Alberta, Canada, or pay a bit more to have it bottled near the national park’s Lake Louise. The company claims that its products can help address "hangovers, alertness, and working out", while also being "your solution to pollution".  

According to the National Post, other applications suggested on the label include "exam prep" and "training", but a disclaimer notes that it can’t help you with "curing, treating, or preventing any diseases or disorders".

Officially launched last year, Vitality Air has since been mainly selling their bottled fresh air and oxygen to customers from North America, India, and the Middle East. But since they opened up sales to China two months ago, it's become by far their biggest overseas market.

"Our first shipment of 500 bottles of fresh air were sold in four days," Lam told Jennifer Pak at The Telegraph. He added that they have a crate containing 4,000 more bottles on its way to China, but most of it has already been bought. They're now struggling to keep up with demand, as each bottle is produced by hand.

While the business itself is ethically pretty gross, it's no surprise that the Chinese locals are looking for creative solutions to ease their anxiety over the state of their country. Just a couple of weeks ago, Beijing issued its first ever 'red alert', with smog levels reaching more than 20 times the designated ‘safe’ limits set by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and levels of dangerous particles skyrocketing.

As David Nield reported for us earlier this month:

"On [30 November], the air level quality index that measures dangerous particles in the air hit 666 in Beijing. To give you some context, in the US, anything above 300 is considered capable of causing the entire population serious health problems. The US scale actually tops out at 500."

Chinese officials finally admitted last month that the country has been emitting nearly 1 billion tonnes more CO2 and burning 17 percent more coal each year than it's previously disclosed.

With a potential public health crisis on their hands and some very angry citizens, the local government is now taking measures, with some cities buying mist cannons to dispurse air pollution, and there are plans to launch pollution-tracking satellites in the coming months while cracking down on the country's biggest polluters. 

It's too soon to tell, but they're likely going to have to do a whole lot more to combat this problem. We'll have to wait and see what that will be in the coming years, but until then, expect to see more 'bottled air' ideas cropping up - thisUS$763 jar of air from the south of France was just the beginning.

'No drill' dentistry shows fillings aren't needed in many cases

Many of us fear going to the dentist, and that fear is made worse by the dreadful prospect that on any given visit, you could be subjected to a whirring drill boring its way through your poor, hurty teeth.

But the findings of a new seven-year study by Australian researchers suggest that many of us have nothing to worry about, with research into 'no drill' oral care techniques showing there's often no need for the traditional 'fill and drill' approach that has defined dentistry for decades.

"It's unnecessary for patients to have fillings because they're not required in many cases of dental decay," said Wendell Evans of the University of Sydney. "This research signals the need for a major shift in the way tooth decay is managed by dentists… Our study shows that a preventative approach has major benefits compared to current practice."

According to the researchers, tooth decay is not the rapidly progressive phenomenon that dentists long believed it was. Because dentists used to think decay was fast-moving, the conventional practice was to identify early decay, remove it immediately to prevent the tooth's surface breaking up into cavities, and fill up the hole that was left with filling.

But decay is not always progressive, say Evans and his team, and even when it is, it develops more slowly than dentists used to think. "For example, it takes an average of four to eight years for decay to progress from the tooth's outer layer (enamel) to the inner layer (dentine)," he said. "That is plenty of time for the decay to be detected and treated before it becomes a cavity and requires a filling."

Developing a set of protocols they call the Caries Management System (CMS), the researchers say tooth decay can be stopped, reversed, and prevented long before a drill comes into play.

Through assessments of decay risk, interpretation of dental X-rays, and risk-specific monitoring, signs of early decay that haven't yet created cavities are detected and treated with a high-concentration fluoride varnish, rather than resorting to more invasive means.

Publishing their findings in Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, Evan and his colleagues showed that decay risk was reduced by 30 to 50 percent among patients who received CMS.

"[The CMS] showed that early decay could be stopped and reversed and that the need for drilling and filling was reduced dramatically," said Evans. "A tooth should be only be drilled and filled where an actual hole-in-the-tooth (cavity) is already evident."

Patients also need to get involved to make the most of CMS, paying attention to their tooth-brushing skills at home, and restricting between-meal snacks and beverages that contain added sugar. But if you can abide by these rules and help make the system work, up to half of the cavities (and drilling) in your future could be eliminated, so surely it's worth making a few small sacrifices?